- News
- Reviews
- Bikes
- Accessories
- Accessories - misc
- Computer mounts
- Bags
- Bar ends
- Bike bags & cases
- Bottle cages
- Bottles
- Cameras
- Car racks
- Child seats
- Computers
- Glasses
- GPS units
- Helmets
- Lights - front
- Lights - rear
- Lights - sets
- Locks
- Mirrors
- Mudguards
- Racks
- Pumps & CO2 inflators
- Puncture kits
- Reflectives
- Smart watches
- Stands and racks
- Trailers
- Clothing
- Components
- Bar tape & grips
- Bottom brackets
- Brake & gear cables
- Brake & STI levers
- Brake pads & spares
- Brakes
- Cassettes & freewheels
- Chains
- Chainsets & chainrings
- Derailleurs - front
- Derailleurs - rear
- Forks
- Gear levers & shifters
- Groupsets
- Handlebars & extensions
- Headsets
- Hubs
- Inner tubes
- Pedals
- Quick releases & skewers
- Saddles
- Seatposts
- Stems
- Wheels
- Tyres
- Health, fitness and nutrition
- Tools and workshop
- Miscellaneous
- Tubeless valves
- Buyers Guides
- Features
- Forum
- Recommends
- Podcast
news
INEOSlogoTeam Sky to become Team Ineos from 1 May
Team Sky will become Team Ineos from 1 May this year after broadcaster Sky and sister company 21st Century Fox confirmed that they had agreed the sale of management company Tour Racing Limited to the petrochemical group, which is the UK’s largest private company.
Sky announced in December that it was withdrawing its sponsorship of the team from the end of this season, and today’s news, which had been widely anticipated in recent days, ensures the future of the UCI WorldTour outfit which has won six of the past seven editions of the Tour de France.
In a press release this afternoon, Sky said that Team Ineos will be formally launched at the Tour de Yorkshire, which starts on 2 May. The team’s first Grand Tour will be the Giro d’Italia – won last year by Chris Froome – which begins on 11 May.
Ineos was founded by Sir Jim Ratcliffe, the UK’s richest man, who is a billionaire Brexit backer and was recently reported to be moving for tax reasons to Monaco, where Team Sky’s Geraint Thomas and Chris Froome are based.
He remains chairman and chief executive of Ineos, and is also the group’s controlling shareholder.
Today he said: “Cycling is a great endurance and tactical sport that is gaining ever more popularity around the world. Equally, cycling continues to mushroom for the general public as it is seen to be good for fitness and health, together with easing congestion and pollution in city environments.”
Earlier today, however, Friends of the Earth accused Ineos, a major producer of plastics, of “greenwashing” by backing the team, whose jerseys at last year’s Tour de France highlighted the Sky Ocen Rescue campaign to free the seas of plastic pollutants.
Tony Bosworth, fossil free campaigner at the environmental campaign group, said: “Taking over Team Sky is the latest blatant attempt at greenwashing by Ineos.
“It’s a harsh change of tone that may see Sky’s Ocean Rescue campaign to clear plastic pollution from our oceans ditched from the team jersey in favour of Ineos – one of the biggest plastic producers in Europe.
"This is also a company that wants to frack large swathes of northern England and the East Midlands. Ineos has also been lobbying hard for the government to relax safety rules so fracking companies can trigger larger earthquakes before having to down tools,” he added.
“Cycling is one the UK’s most successful and popular sports, but do the likes of Geraint Thomas and Chris Froome really want to be associated with a planet-wrecking company like Ineos?”
Sir Dave Brailsford, team principal, said: “Today’s announcement is great news for the team, for cycling fans, and for the sport more widely.
“It ends the uncertainty around the team and the speed with which it has happened represents a huge vote of confidence in our future.
“In Sir Jim Ratcliffe and Ineos, I know that we have found the right partner whose vision, passion and pioneering spirit can lead us to even greater success on and off the bike.
It heralds the start of a hugely exciting new chapter for us all as Team Ineos.”
Sky added that “The practicalities of the transfer are subject to further discussion with the Union Cycliste Internationale.”
Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.
Latest Comments
- brooksby 3 sec ago
You've answered your own question, right there, Rendel: junctions like that are built that way because otherwise motorists might have to slow down,...
- hawkinspeter 1 hour 6 min ago
She's He's not my Queen King and certainly has no ownership of our language!
- bensynnock 1 hour 58 min ago
I see a car go through a red light at almost every single cycle at every single junction. ...
- chrisonabike 2 hours 57 min ago
Also don't forget - Sustrans are a charity *....
- chrisonabike 3 hours 8 min ago
Yes ... but (just due to the large numbers of people affected) this likely would only proceed in the UK at a very ... cautious ... pace....
- EK Spinner 3 hours 26 min ago
Arsehole in the van not with standing, how did they manage to get a risk assessment allowing a race (a group not a TT) group to be competing on ...
- RafaDy 3 hours 21 min ago
I think reviewer completely missed the point here trying to match bike's name with what it can do. Ribble is namin git's bike weirdly, the...
- Moist von Lipwig 6 hours 47 min ago
Bit of googling gone wrong in the article - the JAT is the Junction Assessment Tool, the Joint Approval Team appears to be a coutner terrorism...
- HKR 8 hours 2 min ago
Can't believe that child threw his bike on the floor at the end of that. Young people today have no respect... ;))
Add new comment
42 comments
You can shift responsibility for recycling to the retailer without a single law being enacted - simply unwrap things that are sheathed in unnecessary plastic in the shop prior to purchase.
It isn't working.
In case you missed the news for the last however long, plastic is everywhere. It's in our oceans in huge quantities, it's harming and killing fish and whales and seabirds. It's in our own food, and harming us.
If your idea was going to work - keep producing ever greater quantities of plastic, and just ask consumers to be nice and careful - it would be working already.
It is demonstrably inadequate to deal with the issue. The ONLY way of dealing with it is with new laws which vastly reduce plastic production by companies like Ineos.
Likewise, they must pay the costs of the damage their products cause. At the moment, they take the profits of their activities, and pass the costs to all the rest of us. To put it more simply, they are trashing our planet, and taking no responsibility for it.
It's interesting that several posts on this topic regard the extinction of the human race as a bad thing. Almost every species that ever lived has now disappeared - I've seen figures of 99.9% quoted - what made you think we were different?
Longass, are you having a bad month, you're very aggressive.
Anyhoo back on topic to your last post. I disagree. The money in cycling has meant more coverage, more stars, more tours, more participation. Some will prefer the milk race of the 1980's but I love the cycling boom and that we still get to ride the same roads, enjoy the same bikes, have access to the races etc.
Apologise if that is the impression I have given. I thought I was behaving myself! I really held back when "Welsh Boy" called anybody who thinks carbon fibre reinforced plastic bikes contain plastic, not only carbon, numpties. I thought that was post of the year already. I'll go do my breathing exercises.
All those things you mention are great. I'm not advocating less money in cycling just the system where teams are locked out of the profits from races and so have to hawk themselves for sponsorship.
Back on topic, are people really so sure that this is good for cycling? I think it would be better for long-term health of the sport for a few major teams to go under, putting cycling in to crisis, so that the funding model between the teams, race owners and the UCI can be reformed. I think most of the teams would actually welcome that knowing that ASO are not going to voluntarily relinquish their power.
A better model would have all sorts of benefits including possibly some unintended consequences like less pressure to dope and more funding for Women's cycling.
Or perhaps Ineos' increased funding will ramp up the pressure that much on their other teams that reform is more likely, not less.
Don’t you just love the numpties who think they are clever saying that we ride plastic bikes. Someone who doesn’t know the difference between carbon and plastic can’t really be taken seriously. It is not the manufacturer who puts the product in the ocean, it is the idiot who doesn’t dispose of it properly who is the problem. If you feel so strongly about plastic then boycott products wrapped in it. This sponsorship can only be good for cycling, whether it is good for the environment or not is another argument altogether.
Totally agree, the influx of money into football has raised the profile and introduced us to some exceptional players. F1 hasn't suffered from the influx of money and I don't expect there to be any negatives to rugby union as the money comes in and 6 nations is taken off free to air.
All positive stuff.
My irony meter might be broken so forgive me if I've got the wrong end of the stick
but the influx of money to F1 has completely ruined it as a sport & spectacle,and as for football,outside the heady heights of money no object clubs in the EPL why not ask Bolton Wanderers fans what they currently think of their situation on the brink of being wound up in the courts.
On the whole I'm fairly indifferent on who or what Ineos are for now,as I don't know enough about them or their business,but i can't be un happy they want to invest in cycling when so few seem willing or able anymore & keep a predominantly Brit procycling team on the road
INEOS makes acrylonitrile which is a core ingredient for the production of carbon fibre. In fact they supply it to Toray who make the carbon fibre for Pinarello.
Ref corporate magazine December 2016 which was an article on Froome's tour winning Dogma.
I doubt there will be one of you reading this who have not used a product with INEOS produced material within it.
Are you for real?
This is all so obvious I don't even know why I'm bothering to reply, but... Have you heard nothing about the movement to move the responsibility for recycling from the consumer and government to the retailer and manufacturer?
I don't really care personally about Ineos sponsoring cycling, it's more the amount of money and the team organisation that bother me, however it's totally reasonable if other people morally object.
Shock as bunch of people who love to complain about things on the internet but don't want to inconvenience themselves by actually changing their behaviour try to shift responsibility for their actions to someone else.
You can shift responsibility for recycling to the retailer without a single law being enacted - simply unwrap things that are sheathed in unnecessary plastic in the shop prior to purchase.
How do you know I don't?
This is silly. Sure people can do that already. People could take personal responsibility, but if they don't, let's just leave things the way they are then, eh? I doubt this would be the most successful method for less plastic consumption. This is what government is for.
Let's abolish all rules on the road. People should just take personal responsibility. It'll all work out.
Your grasp of the plastics issue is startlingly simplistic. What's good for cycling is viewership. It remains to be seen if having one super-team winning the TdF every year will be good for viewership. I know I've stopped watching it.
This isn't the first and only example in world class sport of the fetid cess pit that is high level sponsorship. From the front (and these days sleeves) of football jerseys to the arses of pro-tour cyclists, morality and ethics take a very distant back seat to securing a huge deal. It is a strategy for these morally bankrupt businesses to win hearts and minds, more than to gain the financial benefits of extra advertising - let's face it, if you can afford to splash x million on having your name all over Cristiano Ronaldo or Peter Sagan, then you probably don't need more money.
The thing is we, the viewing public, may roll our eyes but still watch, consume and support. Until this stops, nothing will change. We are collectively too apathetic for anything to change.
As for Brailsford, if it was the choice of selling your soul to the devil, or chucking it all away and losing everything he has worked for then I can't really blame him, especially if this was the only offer that came through which allows them to continue in the same way. Maybe a little part of him died when he signed the deal, or maybe not.
Bloody chemicals companies producing all that plastics that are used for packaging of everything (like bike parts) and making rubber for bicycle tyres..... Oh wait hang on a second....
Ineos have the ugliest logo I've ever seen. I'm worried about what the kit will look like now...
Are we going to similarly protest at Total's replacement as sponsor for Direct Energie?, who are more than twice the size of Ineos by revenue £209bn vs £90bn.
Good point! I suppose people here comment on Team Sky as it's a British team and the most successful in recent years.
Remember how Sky and Murdoch were hated before they came into the sport, morally empty at the time, manipulating the public view alongside bribery and corruption allegations? That didn't stop British Cycling from taking their money, or from the whole country coming together in 2012 wearing stick-on ginger burners and celebrating together like it was NYE 1999 all over again.
Us Brits having some sort of team at World Tour level to hang our hat on is a good thing, a successful team makes it a better thing for Britain as a whole, surely you can recognise that we need to have some 'good news' to look for currently..
I hope the Ineos investment/sponsorship attracts more attention to our sport at the top end and filters down to grass roots. I don't know many people who like the idea of fracking in our lands. But I'm also quite sure that whether they sponsor a British sailing team or a British Cycling team, it won't impact the politics, bribery and corruption which have allowed companies to frack to our lands thus far.
All the internet snowflakes and naysayers can carry on either ignoring top end cycling sport, or support another team, but good luck finding one who lives up to the height of your moral compasses. I for one just want to ride my bike with mates and watch cycling on TV. I'm not buying a Team Ineos jersey anytime soon, but this is a stone cold bargain ! https://store.teamsky.com/products/team-sky-free-aero-race-bibshort
More whataboutery going on here than I’ve seen in a while
Well said Longassballs.
Well said Longassballs.
Which one of the above doesnt have a car? then speak. Who doesnt have rubber tyres on their wheels ? then speak?
If you live in the modern world/have rubber tyres, you are banned from taking part in a discussion about what's right and wrong in society, and what we should do in the future?
We are condemned to destroy Earth because we are involved in damaging it now - and everyone is disbarred from suggesting we do anything different.
I've never heard anything so daft in my life.
For me this is a sad day. I put up with Team Sky because of its Britishness despite its connections with Murdoch's right wing press. Sky did make an attempt to look "green" but now they really have sold their souls to the devil. Money, money, money. Frack, frack, frack. Fuck, fuck, fuck the Earth. Come on Brailsford where are your morals !!!
Yes because flying riders round the world to race bikes is the greenest thing in the world.
Look at any pro tour race- all of the support vehicles, press, judges, sponsors, fans chasing round after it.
Ineos will be producing their chemicals whether or not they sponsor a bike team.
I don't see you protesting outside their HQ ?
No. You don’t see anyone. But that may be because of the injunction granted in 2017 preventing protests at “the prospective shale gas sites at Harthill, and Woodsetts, in South Yorkshire and Marsh Lane, Derbyshire; the production sites at Doe Green, Cheshire and Ebberston South, North Yorkshire; and headquarters in central London and Hampshire.”
https://drillordrop.com/2019/03/04/campaigners-bring-test-case-against-c...
So in order to have a legitimate criticism of Ineos one must first protest outside their HQ, not use any plastic, nor chemicals, nor derive any benefit from any oil products - and woe betide if you watch or interact with anyone else doing the same. I assume you live six months of the year at the former site of Bergen Belsen to protest antisemitism, and the other half year swimming with whales to prevent their slaughter.
We all use plastics. Plastics are fucking brilliant. Most of use ride around on plastic bikes. Is it really controversial to abhor their over use? Or dislike fracking? I don't really know what Ineos do, so I could very well be wrong, but I highly doubt they take a full and active role in pro-environmental issues.
Is it hypocritical to point out the hypocrisy of a team that goes from one season having a whale on their jerseys promoting anti plastic pollution, to the next being sponsored by one of the world's biggest plastic producing companies? In the week a beached whale turned up with 40kg of plastic in its stomach? Let alone that the other sponsor contender was the national oil company of Colombia?
Even the most ardent Sky fan must admit that Brailsford is the master of management-speak. He reminds me of a German saying - he could put lipstick on a pig.
Since when did I say anything about plastic bags? Ineos is a major player in the fracking business. We need to be concentrating on phasing out fossil fuels. Just wait until half of the North of England including Yorkshire has been fracked and fucked and see if you still feel the same about Ineos !
Speak for yourself, Sir Dave, speak for yourself. That the cyclists in the team can continue to ride and compete is good news. The rest is absolute shit.
Bunch of ignorant naysayers!
its an Oil company not Isis.
Which one of the above doesnt have a car? then speak. Who doesnt have rubber tyres on their wheels ? then speak?
Who wants to see the best British team Ever in history go down in flames and 130 people lose their jobs? It is money INVESTED into our sport.
I have yet to see vegan banana pies produce enough revenue to fund 5 grand tour contenders on one team
Pages